Friday, March 12, 2010

The Foreign Ministry officials who will appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Friday have claimed in official documents that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination saved Rs150 million, which would have been spent by the then President Pervez Musharraf on his foreign trips but he had to cancel those trips after she was killed.

But one thing is missing from the auditor general’s report: how General Pervez Musharraf spent Rs1.4 billion on his 80 foreign trips during two years (2005-2007). His foreign trip to USA to launch his book “In the Line of Fire” in 2006 cost Rs270 million alone. But, ironically, the AGP report is silent over the spending of such a heavy amount by the then president on the publicity of his autobiography in the US. But the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has been cited as reason for non-utilisation of these millions.

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Apart from Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the bombing in the rally of Benazir Bhutto on October 18, 2007 in which 150 workers had died has also been cited to justify the saving of Rs16 million meant for civil works.